Formatia trans sicere educatorum

“But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people.”

-John Adams

It might be easy to say that the American Revolution began on that night in 1775 when the British regulars came ashore in Boston headed for weapon caches in Lexington and Concord. To say that the shots fired at Lexington and Concord were the cause the of the American Revolution is to completely ignore the events that lead to that night in 1775. Following the French and Indian War (also know as the 7 Years War to Europeans), the British government determined that they would make the Americans pay for the war that they started. While the British government taxed the American colonists before, following the French and Indian War the involvement of the British government grew to something unseen in the American colonies. In 1765 the British Parliament began efforts to pay off the debts from the war through the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was established as a means of taxing the American colonies by requiring all commercial and legal documents to bear a legal stamp. This was the first time the British had ever directly taxed the American colonies. The act, which took effect in November of 1765, was met with harsh resistance from the people. It was from this first taxation that the Revolution era saying, “No Taxation without Representation” took hold. Various forms of resistance were taken by the colonists including boycotting British made products to destroying the prints where the stamps were made. The Sons of Liberty were the radicals who encouraged the more violent forms of protest that lead to the destruction of the prints. In October of that year the Massachusetts legislature spearheaded an effort to hold an inter-colonial meeting for the first time.

The Stamp Act Congress convened in October of 1765 in New York City. Nine of the thirteen colonies attended the Congress including, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina. From this Stamp Act Congress came a letter to King George III, petitions to the British Parliament and the Declaration of Rights and Grievances. Among the points raised in the Declaration of Rights and Grievances are:

1.Only Colonial assemblies have a right to tax the colonies.

2.Trial by Jury was a right, and the use of Admiralty Courts was abusive.

3.Colonists possessed all the rights of Englishmen.

4. Without voting rights, Parliament could not represent the colonists.

The Stamp Act was repealed in March of 1766 by the British Parliament only to be replaced a year later with the Townshend Acts. But by admitting that the British crown in fact had no right to tax the colonies, a right held by the government to do, the Americans were in fact rebelling against British imperial rule over America. The Stamp Act Congress was the first time the colonies came together from all three major regions: New England, Middle, and South. It was in 1765 that the wheels began to turn that caused the colonists to refer to themselves not as Englishmen but as Americans. The American Revolution began the day the colonies met in the Stamp Act Congress.

The American Revolution was not just the war that occurred between 1775 and 1783. The war itself was a product of the Revolution. In the Declaration of Independence the fighting at Lexington and Concord did not even receive direct mention. At the heart of the charges against the King is the fact the British interfered in the running of affairs in North America. Since the Royal Colony of Virginia was established the colonists had maintained a certain level of self government without interference from the British. The Stamp Act, a tax, was at the heart of the molestation by the British. The American colonists believed that laws could not be forced upon someone without their consent. Taxation was only permitted if you have the consent of those whom you are taxing. The American Revolution began in October of 1765 when nine of the thirteen colonies formally questioned the authority of the King to rule in America.[5] The American Revolution did in fact begin long before the war itself commenced. It was because of taxation that the people of Boston stored caches of weapons in Lexington and Concord. It was because of the Boston Tea Party, which was sparked by the Tea Act that caused the British to send troops into Boston. Lexington and Concord were products of the actions taken by the American colonists to prevent illegal taxation by the British. The American Revolution and the War for Independence are two different ideas that encompass each other. The American Revolution was the intellectual developments that occurred beginning in 1765. The War for Independence started off in 1775 in Lexington and Concord and served as the military arm of the Revolution. But as Adams said, the Revolution was already affected in the minds of the people long before the shot heard around the world. The events that took place that night in Lexington and Concord were the climax of a decade’s worth of resistance by the colonies to English taxation.